


In the End

by withcoffeespoons



Series: Nixa Shepard [7]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Minor EDI/Jeff "Joker" Moreau, Minor Garrus Vakarian/Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Synthesis Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withcoffeespoons/pseuds/withcoffeespoons
Summary: It was the most organic thing she could imagine.
Relationships: Jeff "Joker" Moreau & Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Series: Nixa Shepard [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/388603
Kudos: 6





	In the End

Nixa stood on the precipice, her body wavering. Her bones had been broken, her skin bruised. Her breath came heavy and ragged as wet, sticky blood pooled in her armor.

She was out of time.

How could she decide now the fate of all life in the galaxy? How could it come to one person, one woman, bleeding and broken, barely standing?

She heard nothing more than the pounding of her heart, rhythmic and stubborn. It hurt to draw breath. She just wanted it over. She staggered toward the conduit, reaching for her pistol. _Destroy it_ , she told herself. _Finish the job, end the war, just as you intended from the start_.

Or…

She turned to the beam of the crucible.

But what gave her the right to play god? What qualified _her_ to determine the nature of all life in the galaxy?

She looked back at the ghostly AI. The shape of the ghostly image of the boy from Earth, the child she knew in her heart of hearts was the son she would never have. The life that the Collectors stole from her, and that Cerberus ensured would stay lost. He had haunted her dreams and tortured her memories, and now without a word, he watched. “ _You are ready,_ ” he— _it_ had told her, _because_ she was standing there, little more than one hundred and thirty pounds of raw determination and exhaustion.

_What did it matter?_ she thought with empty despair. _She wouldn’t be alive to see it._

But she didn’t get here by thinking of only herself. “You were born for this,” Garrus had told her.

Mindoir, Elysium, the Citadel, the Omega-4 relay. Losing Kaidan on Virmire, finding Thane and his love for her—and losing him. The sacrifice for the Alpha Relay, curing the genophage at Mordin's side, brokering peace between the Geth and the Quarians.

Was it all for this? To destroy?

“You were born for this,” Garrus had said with every confidence backing the words.

Garrus—her friend, who would mourn her, alongside her crewmates, her friends. She had so few left. And if she chose destruction, EDI would die, too. Another friend lost to this fucking war—Anderson and Mordin and Legion and Miranda and Thane.

And EDI, who looked to Nixa with emotion she wasn't supposed to be capable of, who begged to understand humanity, who rewrote her own programming to give priority to the crew because she wanted to be more like them, who called Joker _Jeff_ because she loved him.

_Joker_.

Joker, her best friend, who already lost Nixa once, up close and in high definition. Who would lose her again, no matter her choice.

Joker—who would lose EDI, too, if she went through with it and blew that conduit. And in that moment, she knew the answer.

Nixa laughed, the sound morphing into a crackling cough as her lungs fought with fractured ribs for breathing room.

It was the most _organic_ thing she could imagine.

Shaking her head, she dropped her gun to the floor. It slid mere inches, her muscles weak.

She hobbled toward the beam.

Nixa wondered if he’d ever know. If Joker would ever consider that he had been the reason. If his ego could handle the thought that the nature of all life throughout the galaxy had changed because of him.

Because Nixa Shepard loved him, and he was in love with EDI.

Diving forward, all she could hear was the weak straining of a heartbeat as she let herself fall.

She wasn’t sure if the roaring in her ears was the pulse of the crucible or of her own heart. She thought of EDI and Joker, of Steve Cortez, of Ashley and Vega, of Garrus and Tali.

She tried as hard as she could to imagine a future for them all.

She thought of Thane, and heard the crashing roar of waves on the sand.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr on January 6, 2016.


End file.
